class NativeProcess

Indicates if running native processes is supported in the current OpenFL target. This property returns true only when running on Haxe "sys" targets or the Adobe AIR "extendedDesktop" profile. In addition, NativeProcess.isSupported is always false for applications installed as an .air file. You must package an AIR application using the ADT -target native flag or the -target bundle flag in order to use the NativeProcess class in AIR.

Constructs an uninitialized NativeProcess object. Call the start() method to start the process.

Indicates if this native process is currently running. The process is running if you have called the start() method and the NativeProcess object has not yet dispatched an exit event. A NativeProcess instance corresponds to a single process on the underlying operating system. This property remains true as long as the underlying operating system process is executing (while the native process is starting and until the process returns an exit code to the operating system.)

Provides access to the standard error output from this native process. As data becomes available on this pipe, the NativeProcess object dispatches a ProgressEvent object. If you attempt to read data from this stream when no data is available, the NativeProcess object throw an EOFError exception.

The type is IDataInput because data is input from the perspective of the current process, even though it is an output stream of the child process.

Provides access to the standard input of this native process. Use this pipe to send data to this process. Each time data is written to the input property that data is written to the native process's input pipe as soon as possible.

The type is IDataOutput because data is output from the perspective of the current process, even though it is an input stream of the child process.

Provides access to the standard error output from this native process. As data becomes available on this pipe, the NativeProcess object dispatches a ProgressEvent object. If you attempt to read data from this stream when no data is available, the NativeProcess object throw an EOFError exception.

The type is IDataInput because data is input from the perspective of the current process, even though it is an output stream of the child process.

Closes the input stream on this process. Some command line applications wait until the input stream is closed to start some operations. Once the stream is closed it cannot be re-opened until the process exits and is started again.

Attempts to exit the native process.

Starts the native process identified by the start up info specified. Once the process starts, all of the input and output streams will be opened. This method returns immediately after the request to start the specified process has been made to the operating system. The NativeProcess object throws an IllegalOperationError exception if the process is currently running. The process is running if the running property of the NativeProcess object returns true. If the operating system is unable to start the process, an Error is thrown.

A NativeProcess instance corresponds to a single process on the underlying operating system. If you want to execute more than one instance of the same operating system process concurrently, you can create one NativeProcess instance per child process.

You can call this method whenever the running property of the NativeProcess object returns false. This means that the NativeProcess object can be reused. In other words you can construct a NativeProcess instance, call the start() method, wait for the exit event, and then call the start() method again. You may use a different NativeProcessStartupInfo object as the info parameter value in the subsequent call to the start() method.

The NativeProcess class and its capabilities are only available to Haxe "sys" targets and AIR applications installed with a native installer. When debugging AIR, you can pass the -profile extendedDesktop argument to ADL to enable the NativeProcess functionality. Check the NativeProcess.isSupported property to to determine whether native process communication is supported.

Important security considerations:

The native process API can run any executable on the user's system. Take extreme care when constructing and executing commands. If any part of a command to be executed originates from an external source, carefully validate that the command is safe to execute. Likewise, your OpenFL application should validate data passed to a running process.

However, validating input can be difficult. To avoid such difficulties, it is best to write a native application (such as an EXE file on Windows) that has specific APIs. These APIs should process only those commands specifically required by the OpenFL application. For example, the native application may accept only a limited set of instructions via the standard input stream.

AIR on Windows does not allow you to run .bat files directly. Windows .bat files are executed by the command interpreter application (cmd.exe). When you invoke a .bat file, this command application can interpret arguments passed to the command as additional applications to launch. A malicious injection of extra characters in the argument string could cause cmd.exe to execute a harmful or insecure application. For example, without proper data validation, your AIR application may call myBat.bat myArguments c:/evil.exe. The command application would launch the evil.exe application in addition to running your batch file.

If you call the start() method with a .bat file, the NativeProcess object throws an exception. The message property of the Error object contains the string "Error #3219: The NativeProcess could not be started."